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Kyoto - Blog Posts
Something about me and my friend’s Kyoto trip 2017.
To keep or not to keep? The case of the Kyoto Imperial Palace
Completing the set of former Imperial palaces that I've visited, the question regarding Kyoto was a different one, when, after the Meiji Revolution, the throne of Japan was moved to Tokyo, ending Kyoto's 1000-year tenure as Imperial capital. The answer came swiftly: keep it. After all, it had only been rebuilt in 1855, fires having destroyed the palace multiple times in the Edo period alone.
The Shishinden throne hall, with its courtyard and traditional tachibana orange and sakura cherry trees either side of its grand staircase, was used for the coronations of Emperors Taishô and Shôwa (Hirohito) in 1915 and 1928, but since the accession of Emperor Akihito in 1989, coronations have been held at the active Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
Today, the palace is preserved and can be visited for free, albeit on a fixed tour route. Only the exterior of the buildings can be accessed, still allowing good views of the Shishinden and the gardens to the East of the palace.
Nijô-jô
In my experience, Nijô Castle in Kyôto is one of the most unusual in the Japanese castle landscape, in that the main focus of the conservation and tourist attraction is on a palace, the Ni-no-maru Goten, rather than a dungeon (whether reconstructed or original). It is true that, as the Tokugawa shôgun's residence in the Emperor's back yard, it was a focal point of Edo-period politics.
The palace sits behind a grand gate, decorated with lots of gold and colours. And as all noble residences from the Edo period go, there's a vast, carefully crafted garden on the side, complete with tea houses.
But all this is part of the Ni-no-maru, the area around the Hon-maru main keep. Given that the mountains around Kyôto are largely occupied by temples and shrines, there's not much of a height advantage to be gained in the city, to the point where, when the Hon-maru burned down in the 1780s, nothing was rebuilt, it was left bare!
Eerily, the Tokugawa shôgun's Kyôto castle has a similar story to the one in Edo: there was a keep, but it was destroyed during the Edo period and wasn't rebuilt, and both castle grounds were transferred to the Imperial Estate at the start of the Meiji era. It was in the 1880s that the Hon-maru palace was built, in the space the Tokugawas had left vacant.
Japan's first Concorso d'Eleganza
A Concorso d'Eleganza is basically a beauty pageant for historic cars. Based on similar contests for horse-drawn carriages, called Concours d'Élégance, the Italian name references the fact that the most famous competition in the genre for cars has taken place in Italy since 1929.
The Japanese version was launched in 2016, with the amusingly-named "Artistic Cars at the World Heritage, since 2016" exhibit at Nijô-jô, Kyôto. I say amusing, because they were using the "since 2016" tag in 2016, and... it hasn't used that name since! Nonetheless, the sight of these immaculately preserved cars in the lovely palace gardens was impressive.
Among the cars built between the 1950s and 1990s, there was an exhibit with rare Zagato specials. Particularly obscure is the Autech Zagato Stelvio, shown above and below. Of the three names, Zagato is the best known: they are an Italian coachbuilder, who make unique bodywork. Autech is a Japanese tuner, working most closely with Nissan. And the Stelvio is a late-80s mix of all that: a modified Nissan Leopard with very unique design choices, such as the wing mirrors in the fenders.
The Concorso d'Eleganza Kyoto is set to resume this year, having been put off due to the pandemic and the restrictions surrounding it since 2020. The principle hasn't changed: they're going to show some remarkable historic cars in a historic Japanese setting - at Nara this time.
@chitaka45 just published some gorgeous photos of Shinsen-en in the snow (I love their photos in general BTW, Kyoto's shrines and temples in all their glory!). I found this place by chance while walking to Nijô-jô in 2016 - different season, different colours.
Part garden, part temple, part shrine, Shinsen-en dates back to the start of the Heian period, when it was an Imperial property. One of its most distinctive features is the Dragon Boat, which apparently serves for Moon viewing events. Several Japanese seasonal traditions, like Moon viewing and cherry blossom viewing, are said to originate in Heian-period Kyôto.
On the JR Nara line
Uji city and the the building on the 10-yen coin can be accessed by train from Kyôto by going roughly a third of the way to Nara. Other famous sites near the line are Fushimi Inari Taisha (Inari stop), and the studios of Kyoto Animation, famous for the music and sports anime K-On and Free! (Kohata stop).
The most recent type on the route is the 221 Series, and it's already getting on a bit, introduced in 1989. It won one of the Japan Railfan Club's two main new train design awards, the Laurel Prize, the following year. The 221 is used on the fastest Miyakokji Rapid services, which do the Kyôto to Nara run in under 45 minutes.
Green 103 Series sets can also be seen. This is the oldest type still in active JR service (if not, it's close), as it was introduced in 1963. In 2016, when I first visited Japan, I was living near Paris, and some Métro and suburban lines were running trains of a similar age, if not older, and these were atrocious in hot weather - no air conditioning, and ventilation only provided by opening windows! The RATP MP 59 used on Métro line 11 was stinky to boot; it was withdrawn just before the Games, no wonder! Point is, the 103 doesn't have air con either, but is at least trying...
As the maths problems take a break, maybe we can have a brief pub quiz. So...
Q. What's that building on the 10-yen coin?
A. The Phoenix Hall at Byôdô-in, Uji.
Initially built as a villa by a member of the Minamoto clan just before the year 1000, the land was sold not long after to members of a rival clan, the Fujiwaras, who turned it into a Buddhist temple named Byôdô-in in 1052. The most striking feature of the temple is the Amida Hall, which with time gained the name Phoenix Hall due to its overall appearance: the two outer corridors are the wings, and a corridor extending behind is the tail.
At the same time, tea production was picking up in Uji, and by the 14th century, Uji tea had become well renowned. I need to go back there someday, my first visit was just an afternoon flick after completing the climb of Mt Inari in the morning. I thought of going back there in the summer of 2023, but couldn't quite make time for it.
History on the high street: Honnô-ji
Similarly to the other examples mentioned in a previous post, a temple sits at the North-East end of Teramachi shopping street, with traditional-style gate and buildings. But this is more than an ordinary temple, as it bears the name of a pivotal moment of Japanese history.
I say "bears the name", because this is not the actual location of the Honnô-ji incident. The original Honnô-ji was built a few kilometres to the South-West, nearer to Shijô (the 4th East-West street South of the castle; the current temple is North of Sanjô, or 3rd street). It was there that, in 1582, Akechi Mitsuhide, a general in the force aiming to unify feudal Japan, rebelled against his leader, Oda Nobunaga. The importance of Oda Nobunaga would be its own series if I had the material, but if you know, you know; I'll concentrate on Honnô-ji.
Akechi's forces laid siege and burned the temple down, and it is widely believed that the trapped Nobunaga committed seppuku - however, his body was never found. Akechi, meanwhile, had underestimated other generals' loyalty to Nobunaga. Toyotomi Hideyoshi swiftly brokered a peace treaty with the lord he was fighting in the West to rush back to Kyôto, and ran Akechi down just two weeks after the coup.
Hideyoshi was accepted as the new leader of central Japan, and went back to expanding westward. He also ordered that Honnô-ji be moved to its current location and rebuilt in 1591. It has, in fact, needed to be rebuilt several times since, each time after fires ravaged the capital. Beyond its function as a Buddhist worship site, the new Honnô-ji includes a mausoleum to Oda Nobunaga, as the decision was made by his successors to honour him there.
I remember passing by this temple in 2016, during my first trip to Japan, a three-week work visit in Kyôto. I had no notions on Japanese history at the time, and it was only a while later that I realised the importance of Honnô-ji. So, as an aside to Gion Matsuri in 2023, I decided I had to go back for a closer look.
Temples on the high street: Kyôto Teramachi and Shinkyôgoku
A typical Japanese covered high street, right? Yes, there are lots of shops left and right, but this is Kyôto, a millennial capital and centre of cultural and religious tradition in Japan. So what happens when a modern high street encounters a centuries-old temple, bearing in mind that it would be very bad form to ask the priests to sell up?
Well you leave the temple alone and build around it. So, in between the big name drugstores, Animate, clothes shops and cafés lined with the street's signature bricks and tile floor, here's the entrance to Seishin-in, with traditional wooden doors and tile roofing. It is also just visible in the first picture - see if you can notice it.
Seigan-ji is easier to spot, further illustrating the contrast. Online maps show that this temple even has a cemetery in the middle of the next block, completely encircled by shopping streets and businesses.
It's a similar situation for Tenshô-ji, though, this far up the high street, the commercial tissue becomes less dense. These temples seem a bit larger and own more land. Still, we've gone from a towering, mineral, covered street in the top photo, to an open path with low buildings and plenty of vegetation, with no transition.
These scenes of coexistence fascinated me when I first visited Kyôto in 2016, with a hotel in this area, so it was great to see them again on my brief return to the city in 2023. More fascinating still is the fact that one of these "just off the high street" temples is not only very old, but hugely historically significant... and I'm yet to mention it!
To end the "Canal Contraptions" mini-series, here's a brief look at the Keage Incline on the Lake Biwa canal in Kyoto. Located near Nanzen-ji and its famous aqueducts, it's apparently a popular sakura spot, not that I'd know visiting in July...
Boats were loaded onto wagons at one end of the slope, and hauled by an electric engine up or down before being unloaded back into the water at the other end. Thinking about it just now it sounded rather ludicrous to me, but I was picturing long European-style barges, but the boats of Meiji period Japan were probably not that big, as a picture of the surviving wagon shows.
We didn't go down to the incline, it was just something the friends I was travelling with that day brought up between Nanzen-ji and our next destination. Something to go back for...
Kanazawa-Tsuruga Shinkansen extension open!
Since yesterday, these beauties (seen at Takasaki on the same trip I had that "race" into Omiya) have another 120 km of track to play on, as the Hokuriku Shinkansen extends further West along the coast of the Sea of Japan into Fukui Prefecture.
Of course, the best news here is that travel times between Kanazawa and Tsuruga are slashed - let me rephrase: halved - compared to the previous fastest express services. The dream of completing the route to Kyoto and Osaka is in reach, and if you add the Maglev line, there could, in the long-term future, be three full high-speed Tokyo-Osaka lines: the historic South coast route, the scenic North coast route and the ultra-fast route straight through the middle.
But there are other consequences. As has become the standard along the Hokuriku route, the old line has immediately been sold off to a "third sector" company - largely run and subsidised by local authorities for as long as they're happy to keep the line open. Only all-stop trains are operated by these third sector companies, so there are only two options: very slow local trains, or very fast, but all the more expensive, high-speed trains. No rapids, no expresses.
The express trains which used to go to Kanazawa now all terminate early at Tsuruga, including the Thunderbirds - of course, technologically advanced Japan has more than the five Thunderbirds Gerry Anderson could muster! This display board seen in 2016 is not likely to be seen again. And if the route to Kyoto is completed, will the name disappear altogether, or continue as an omnibus Shinkansen service to Toyama? Maybe resurrect the original name Raichô (yes, similar to the Pokémon)?
Train geek notes aside, the future's hopefully bright for the region this new stretch of line serves, which was hit hard by the New Year Earthquake.
北陸新幹線おめでとうございます!
